


Black and Blue

by Baconator



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Timeskips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baconator/pseuds/Baconator
Summary: Senku was six years old when his first soulmate mark appeared, and when it did, Byakuya had practically screeched.
Relationships: Asagiri Gen/Ishigami Senkuu
Comments: 29
Kudos: 375





	Black and Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I hyperfixated and wrote 8 pages of this fic at 1am in the morning ffs

Senku was six years old when his first soulmate mark appeared, and when it did, Byakuya had practically screeched.

“What happened to your knee!?” The older man screamed as he pointed at the offending area. Senku, who had just arrived from school and hadn’t even said hi yet, looked at his father in confusion before he glanced down at his leg.

There, just a few inches below the hem of his shorts sat an angry red scratch, a telling sign that the boy had taken a rough tumble. Senku looked at it in surprise, wondering when and how such a thing appeared without him even noticing. Without giving it much thought, he reached down to poke at it which prompted Byakuya to freak out once again.

“Don’t touch it, you’ll make it even worse!” He fretted before turning in the direction of the restroom, “Stay right there, I’ll be back with the first aid kit!”

“Calm down pops, I can’t even feel it.” Senku huffed but Byakuya was already in the restroom and he could hear him frantically rummaging through the medicine cabinet. The curious boy instead turned his attention to the injury and was amazed at how he _literally_ couldn’t feel it. There was no sensation of pain even as he firmly pressed his finger onto the wound, it was as if the injury was drawn onto his skin. He didn’t have much time to inspect the mysterious scratch as Byakuya was just as fast in returning with bandaids and rubbing alcohol in hand. 

Senku wasn’t new to injuries, he had taken care of a few cuts and bruises on his own so being fussed over by his father was a bit jarring. Instead of putting up a small fight and insisting that he could do it by himself, the boy simply watched as the older man knelt down and dabbed at the wound with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol. There was no sting, no discomfort or even blood as the man cleaned the area and proceeded to bandage it up.

“There, much better.” Byakuya happily sighed as he stood back up and wiped his forehead as if the act had taken a great amount of work.

Senku rolled his eyes at the dramatic gesture but couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips. “You’re such a worry wart, I told you it didn’t even hurt.”

“How’d that even happen? Did you fall on your way home?” The older man questioned as he watched the young boy kick off his shoes before sauntering over to his room.

“Don’t know, once I figure it out I’ll let you know.” He responded before closing the door to his room.

To be honest, Senku had completely forgotten about the injury once he opened up his bookmarked textbook about electromagnetic waves. He had the bad habit of heavily immersing himself in his studies and he was thankful that Byakuya was there to keep track of time and prevented him from neglecting his bodily needs, such as food.

After preparing a light meal, Byakuya had called Senku for dinner as he began serving their portions. Almost immediately the boy strolled in at the mention of food, but not before bumping his knee into one of the drawers that the older man had forgotten to close.

“Are you okay?” Byakuya instantly asked as he set down the plates and walked over to shut the drawer.

“Yeah I’m fine.” Senku slightly winced but responded in a calm way as to not alarm his father once again. It was then that he noticed that he had bumped the same knee he had apparently scrapped earlier, and besides the dull sting from hitting the drawer, he felt nothing else. His curiosity for the forgotten injury immediately spiked and without a second of hesitation ripped off the bandaid Byakuya had carefully applied.

“Wait, Senku what are you-” The man in question panicked but was immediately silenced once the bandage came off. And it wasn’t just Byakuya, Senku had also gaped when he saw the wound, or rather, the lack of it.

The skin on his knee was perfectly unscathed. There was no scratch, redness or scar, it was as if the injury had never existed in the first place.

“What?... Wasn’t there just…” Byakuya muttered in confusion but Senku smirked as he ran his finger over the previously injured area. 

“I knew there was something off when I couldn’t remember how I had gotten that scratch. That solves one mystery but leads to a whole different set of questions, right Byakuya?"

He looks up at his father only to see the older man deep in thought. His eyebrows are scrunched up in concentration and Senku has to call out to him to break him out of his stupor.

"Ah sorry." The man sheepishly smiled as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "It's just- it's my first time seeing one of these soulmate things. It took me by surprise."

"Soulmates?" Senku parroted with an equally curious look. "What are you talking about pops?"

"It's a bit of a long story, why don't I explain over dinner?" He offered and Senku agreed, not wanting the food to go cold.

Like he had promised, Byakuya had explained how there were some people out there in the world that were bound together by fate. A cheesy explanation yes, but the most accurate way of describing the occurrence.

These people were literally bound as they would be marked in different ways for the purpose of finding their soulmate. Some people had matching birthmarks, corresponding eye color and sometimes even words written on their skin. Each pair of soulmates were marked in their own unique way.

Unfortunately, the people who made up the soulmate population were few and it explained why Byakuya had looked so shocked at the revelation, and why Senku had never heard of such a thing.

After a bit more discussion, Byakuya and Senku had agreed that Senku and his soulmate were somehow connected in a physical sense. His soulmate must have tripped and fallen somewhere which was why there was a scrape on his knee. Senku merely laughed at the unknown stranger, remarking that they must be extremely clumsy meanwhile Byakuya scolded him on being mean to his soulmate.

That night, Senku went to bed with a bright smile and fell asleep as he wondered what his soulmate looked like.

* * *

Now that he was aware of the existence of his soulmate, Senku began to notice the appearance of small cuts and bruises that he knew weren't caused by him.

He studied the phenomenon with Byakuya and found that no matter what injury popped up, none of them ever hurt or were permanent. He learned that injuries disappeared from his own skin depending on their severity. Small cuts and bruises would fade after a minute or two, and larger wounds would take up to an hour at most. This information later on explained Senku's first soulmate mark.

It had become part of his daily schedule to look over his body when he woke up and before going to bed. Finding small injuries was commonplace and Senku would simply smile as he wondered what his soulmate had done this time to get such a mark. Sometimes injuries would show up in interesting places and Senku would take mental note of the mark to ask his soulmate about it when they eventually met.

* * *

Senku was seven years old the next time a large injury had appeared. He had been in the middle of drilling Taiju with math equations when the boy gasped and dropped the pencil he held. The tiny genius looked at his friend in confusion before following his gaze and looking at his own hands in shock.

His palms were littered with cuts and seemed as if they were about to profusely bleed. Senku nearly freaked out for a moment before remembering his clumsy soulmate. That's right, these weren't _his_ injuries, they didn't hurt.

"Senku we have to get you to the nurse!" His childhood friend yelled as he stood up and took hold of his wrist, presumably to drag the weaker boy to the infirmary. The boy in question was quick to slip out of Taiju's grasp before gesturing at him to sit down and not to drag anymore attention to themselves in the middle of class.

The boy hesitantly sat and asked if he was truly okay. Senku nodded and promised that he would explain the cuts after school. They went back to work but Senku couldn't help but stare at his hands with a slight frown. Early on, he had made the conclusion that his soulmate was a bit of an airhead, but not to this extent. Had they tried picking up glass with their bare hands? Why would they do that?

After explaining the situation to his best friend and later on to his concerned father, Senku couldn't help but wonder exactly what type of life his soulmate was living.

* * *

Byakuya was called into a conference after Senku's homeroom teacher had spotted his son with a large bruise on his forearm.

The woman began by apologizing for the sudden call and saying that she feared that his son was being bullied by his peers. Byakuya looked at Senku in question and the boy sighed in annoyance.

"I keep telling her it's not what she thinks. It's my stupid soulmate acting up again."

Immediately understanding the situation, Byakuya was quick to explain the circumstances behind his son's apparent injury. It's obvious the woman isn't buying the explanation and Senku offers to provide the proof. There's about a ten minute delay before the bruising begins to disappear just like they had claimed and the teacher looks a bit amazed.

"You see by what I mean?" An annoyed Senku huffed before he went back to crossing his arms.

The woman was quick to regain her composure but it's obvious by her troubled expression that she still isn't at peace just yet. "Yes, I'm very sorry for not listening to you Ishigami-kun. Would you mind stepping outside for a bit? I need to share a word with your father."

Just wanting the meeting to be over with, Senku quickly walked out of the room and went off to find his father's car outside so they could leave already.

The teacher waited for a moment to confirm that the boy was gone before speaking to the man in front of her in a semi-hushed tone.

"I apologize if I'm overstepping my boundaries Ishigami-san, but does your son know his soulmate? Are they in contact?"

Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the question but shook his head. "No, he hasn’t mentioned it at least. Why?"

The woman’s agitated expression deepened. "Those bruises didn't seem to be made by accident. I was hoping you could check in with his soulmate to see if they're okay, but it seems like that isn't possible."

A sinking feeling settles in Byakuya's stomach. He knows exactly what the teacher is hinting at and he can't deny the fact that her implication had crossed his mind many times.

"If it's any consolation, this is the worst his markings have ever been. Normally, the marks are small and barely noticeable."

Those words seem to lift the teacher's mood a bit and she offered a faint smile. "Alright, that will be all for today. Once again, I'm sorry for calling you out here during your work."

Byakuya shook his head once again as they both engaged in a formal handshake. "No, no. You were just looking out for my son, I should be thanking _you_ ."

As he departed from the school with his son in tow, Byakuya couldn't shake the feeling of dread that was creeping up his back. If a complete stranger had come to the same conclusion regarding his son's soulmate, then maybe he wasn't being as irrational as he thought he was.

The cuts and bruises continue on for the year, and meanwhile Senku seemed to grow a bit annoyed at the marks, Byakuya felt nothing but sorrow.

* * *

Senku was nine years old when he had woken up one morning with his next big injury.

He had waltzed out of his room for breakfast still half asleep from a night of reading. Byakuya, who had been in the middle of making pancakes, turned to Senku with a bright smile to greet him before his expression changed to one of shock.

"Something wrong?" The younger boy asked as he looked at the man with a puzzled look.

His father slowly knelt down and gently caressed Senku’s face as if he were afraid to hurt him.

There's a moment in which time seems to stop as Byakuya looks at him with so much sadness in his eyes that it makes Senku's own heart clench.

Though his father is looking straight at him, it doesn't feel like he's looking _at him_ . It only takes a few seconds for Senku to realize that whatever Byakuya is sad about, it involved his soulmate.

"Can I see?" Senku asked in a soft voice.

Byakuya hesitated for a few minutes before finally letting him go and watching as the boy slowly walked to the restroom.

Senku entered the restroom and his finger hovered over the light switch, suddenly hesitant to see what had upset his father. As if ripping off the metaphorical bandaid, he switched on the light and nearly gasped at what he saw in the mirror.

The skin around his left eye was bruised a deep purple and his left cheek sported a similar mark.

Byakuya was standing outside the restroom and could see his son's face as he connected the dots in his head and came to the same realization Byakuya and Senku's teacher did all those months ago. After all, despite looking like a kid, Senku had the mentality of someone way beyond his age. It was likely that he had his own suspicions about the bruises earlier on, but like Byakuya, had just hoped that they were being irrational.

His bottom lip slightly quivered and Byakuya couldn't help but tightly hug his son as they both cried for a stranger neither of them had ever met.

Though he knew it was a childish wish, Senku hoped that wherever his soulmate was, that they could feel the warm and loving embrace his father was giving him.

* * *

The marks are more frequent and get worse when Senku is eleven years old. He feels bad for being thankful that most cuts and bruises are easy to hide with his school uniform. On the rare days that he wakes up with a bruise on his face, he stays home and depends on Taiju to bring his classwork.

Senku wasn't embarrassed about the marks themselves, because he knew that he did nothing wrong to cause them. But deep inside he feels as if his soulmate would appreciate it if he kept them a secret. Soulmate or not, it wasn't Senku's place to let the public know about their personal problems.

Despite being a professor, Byakuya said nothing whenever Senku walked into the kitchen with a hand covering his eye and mumbled something about staying home.

Even with his school life being thrown for a loop, one of the few things that remained constant was Senku’s passion for learning. When he wasn’t breezing by school assignments he found himself spending most of his time on literal rocket science. On the few occasions that Senku grew bored of his daily studies, he would find himself researching the topic of soulmates, or more specifically, how to find them.

Frustrating as it was, there wasn’t much information to look at. Most articles and journals he found mostly theorized on how soulmates came to be and how their bonds functioned. Anything that wasn’t science-related was mostly gossip that hyped the idea of soulmates and tried scamming the reader into paying for an online service that supposedly ‘found’ their soulmate.

As it became apparent that no amount of research would ever yield valuable results, Senku had to begrudgingly let the idea of finding his soulmate by force go. Even so, he couldn’t help but pay a bit of extra attention to the students that would show up to class with bandages or crutches. The marks on his skin never matched the injuries on other people’s bodies, and even though he knew the chances of his soulmate attending the same school was close to zero, he couldn’t help but feel disheartened.

* * *

Senku is twelve years old when he receives his last soulmate mark.

After being able to attend school for a month straight without any huge setbacks, he began to realize just how infrequent the marks became. Finding any sort of bruise became a rare occasion, and a few weeks after his initial observation, the marks stopped showing up altogether.

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to have this fic completed by next week, but I was literally called this morning for a position at my dream job!! I’m extremely nervous but really happy at the same time! I don’t know when I’ll have time to work on the next chapter, but I posted this here so I don’t forget about it (I check Ao3 everyday lol). Until then, see ya!


End file.
